Collecting information about the cemeteries of Bridgewater is an ongoing effort, and this page will be revised as needed. If you have cemetery information or gravestone transcriptions that you would like to share please send me email.

Where I have been able to determine it, the records repository for a cemetery is indicated. In the entries for the individual cemeteries, if one has its own web site or a portion of a web site the cemetery name provides a link to that site. When the location of a cemetery is known there are links to street and topographic maps to help you find it, as well as a brief description of the location and, perhaps, direction for reaching it. Below these paragraphs is a locator map of the town showing the cemetery locations - place the mouse cursor over a sector to highlight it, and click to bring up a sector map showing the cemetery locations in that part of the town. Any gravestone transcriptions online also have links. At the bottom of the page is a seperate section listing all online and published gravestone transcriptions that I have found for these cemeteries.

When a cemetery has had more than one name during its history the first name listed is the one by which it is usually known today, and alternative names are listed in square brackets. In some cases a cemetery has been abandoned, its burials have been removed to another cemetery, or its location has been lost. In those cases the name indicates that it is a cemetery site, meaning that no gravestones are to be found there. The year in parenthesis next to a cemetery name is my best estimate of the year in which that cemetery was established. In some cases the year is mentioned in town records, a town history or some other source. In other cases it is the year of the oldest gravestone for which I have found a record.

I would like to thank Justine Sheehan of the Bridgewater Town Clerk's Office, who made available a great deal of information kept in that office concerning these cemeteries.

A note on the Topographic Maps: In the past I have used links to online map servers to display topographic maps. That allowed visitors to zoom and pan those maps. However, changes to those online map servers have necessitated occasional revisions to my many cemetery pages, and on more than one occasion I have had to change the server used. This has meant a great deal of work as I have about fifty cemetery pages online or under construction. A change to the server which I havr most recently used has prompted be to abandon the use of topographic map servers and to replace them with images of scanned maps. While this may not be quite as satisfactory to visitors my increasing genealogical work load has necessitated it.

Notes: Contains about 75 stones, with burials from 1829 to the 1960s, mostly from 1829 to 1910. The most common surnames are Conant, Hayward, Holmes, Leach, Leonard and Waterman. One of the oldest stones is Zerras Conant, 1829. See the information about this cemetery from Find A Grave.

Notes: Contains about 150 stones, with burials from 1813 to the 1980s, mainly from 1813 to 1860. The most common surnames are Allen, Mitchell, Washburn, Whitman and Wood. See the information about this cemetery from Find A Grave.

Location: East side of Conant St., about 1/2 mile south of Flagg St., behind the Conant St. Smallpox Cemetery.

Notes: Burial location for residents of a succession of institutions preceeding and including the Bridgewater Correctional Complex and Bridgewater State Hospital. The graves are marked with numbered stones. See the information about this cemetery from Find A Grave.

Notes: Contains about 100 stones, with burials from the late 1700 to the present, mostly from 1830 to 1870. Holds the graves of Revolutionary War soldiers and Pratt Town Paper Mill workers, as well as those of Capt. Jacob Leonard (d. 1841, a. 84), Solomon Hayward (d. Oct-1832, a. 79), Capt. Simeon Pratt (d. Sep-1848), William Hooper and Ensign David Leonard. The most common surnames are Keith and Pratt. See the information about this cemetery from Find A Grave.

Notes: This is a small family cemetery holding three graves from 1833 to 1848 - those of Maria, James and Ellen A. White, children of Frederick Augustus and Patience E. (Holmes) White. Special thanks go to John Gravlin of Bridgewater for locating this cemetery and providing information about it. See the information about this cemetery from Find A Grave.

Notes: The original portion of this cemetery (which is sometimes called "First St. Thomas Aquinas Cemetery" contains burials beginning in the 1850s and is adjacent to the church. In the late 1860s a new cemetery was opened to the south on Center St. In the 1950s a new St. Thomas Aquinas Cemetery was opened adjacent to the first cemetery on Center St. See the information about the first cemetery from Find A Grave and the information about the new cemetery from Find A Grave.

Notes: Contains about 175 stones from the mid 1700s to the present. Noted for its iron plot enclosures and gates, presumably the work of Lazell's Iron Foundry (1780-1836) and and the Bridgewater Iron Co. (1836-1893), and its hammered granite cornerposts. See the information about this cemetery from Find A Grave.

Charles Milton Thatcher, Old Cemeteries of Southeastern Massachusetts (Middleborough, MA: Middleborough Public Library, 1995). Contains over 16,000 transcriptions of gravestones up to the mid-1800s, from 214 cemeteries located in 28 Plymouth and Bristol County towns. Although this is still a useful resource, many transcription errors have been discovered, so use Thatcher with care and check it against the actual gravestones or other transcriptions.